Abstract
The predictions of two contrasting approaches to the acquisition of transitive relative clauses were tested within the same groups of German-speaking participants aged from 3 to 5 years old. The input frequency approach predicts that object relative clauses with inanimate heads (e.g., the pullover that the man is scratching) are comprehended earlier and more accurately than those with an animate head (e.g., the man that the boy is scratching). In contrast, the structural intervention approach predicts that object relative clauses with two full NP arguments mismatching in number (e.g., the man that the boys are scratching) are comprehended earlier and more accurately than those with number-matching NPs (e.g., the man that the boy is scratching). These approaches were tested in two steps. First, we ran a corpus analysis to ensure that object relative clauses with number-mismatching NPs are not more frequent than object relative clauses with number-matching NPs in child directed speech. Next, the comprehension of these structures was tested experimentally in 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds respectively by means of a color naming task. By comparing the predictions of the two approaches within the same participant groups, we were able to uncover that the effects predicted by the input frequency and by the structural intervention approaches co-exist and that they both influence the performance of children on transitive relative clauses, but in a manner that is modulated by age. These results reveal a sensitivity to animacy mismatch already being demonstrated by 3-year-olds and show that animacy is initially deployed more reliably than number to interpret relative clauses correctly. In all age groups, the animacy mismatch appears to explain the performance of children, thus, showing that the comprehension of frequent object relative clauses is enhanced compared to the other conditions. Starting with 4-year-olds but especially in 5-year-olds, the number mismatch supported comprehension—a facilitation that is unlikely to be driven by input frequency. Once children fine-tune their sensitivity to verb agreement information around the age of four, they are also able to deploy number marking to overcome the intervention effects. This study highlights the importance of testing experimentally contrasting theoretical approaches in order to characterize the multifaceted, developmental nature of language acquisition.
Highlights
Child language acquisition is a multifaceted process, which is likely to be influenced by several factors including structural rule learning, statistical learning, and social learning (e.g., Gervain and Mehler, 2010)
In order to evaluate the input frequency approach, we tested the prediction that object relative clauses with an inanimate head and an embedded animate NP are easier to interpret than object relative clauses with two animate NPs
We tested a derived prediction, which is often supported by the existing literature, that object relative clauses with an inanimate head are as easy as subject relative clauses with two animate NPs
Summary
Child language acquisition is a multifaceted process, which is likely to be influenced by several factors including structural rule learning, statistical learning, and social learning (e.g., Gervain and Mehler, 2010). The performance of children in experimental studies on complex sentences has often been used as a prism to infer which factors can be deployed to achieve an adult-like interpretation (e.g., Roeper, 2007). Relative clauses have been used to test different language acquisition theories (Ambridge and Lieven, 2011). The study presented in this paper was designed to test, within the same participant groups, the predictions of what we will be calling the input frequency approach and the structural intervention approach. While the input frequency approach mainly concentrates on the distributional factors that influence children’s early linguistic knowledge and its usage, the structural intervention approach focuses on grammatical mechanisms that may hinder or enhance the emergence of this knowledge. The potential co-occurrence of frequency- and structuredriven effects, which might, simultaneously or successively, guide the performance of children during development can only be inferred indirectly
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